Putin believes that the arms race between the US and Russia started a long time ago

However, in an interview with U.S. television channel NBC, the Russian President denied the beginning of a new cold war

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that, in his opinion, the arms race between the US and Russia started a long time ago after the United States in 2002 decided to withdraw from the Treaty on the limitation of anti-ballistic missile systems (ABM).

However, in an interview with U.S. television channel NBC, a fragment of which aired on Thursday, Putin expressed his disagreement with the allegations that the US and Russia were embroiled in a new phase of the cold war.

“From my point of view, those who declare the beginning of a new cold war, are not analysts â€“ they do propaganda. If you are talking about the arms race, it began when the United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty,” â€“ said the President of Russia.

Fragments of the interview were released after Putin said Thursday that Russia has made “rapid, big step” in the creation of new strategic weapons, noting that many of these weapons are able to overcome the defensive system of the United States and other Western countries.

Speaking to the Federal Assembly, the Russian President said his country is developing non-ballistic types of strategic weapons, against which a missile defence system (NMD) is meaningless.

“We started developing these new types of strategic weapons which do not use ballistic trajectory when moving to the target, and therefore a missile defense system in the fight against them is useless and meaningless,” said Putin.

“All these years after the unilateral US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty we have worked hard on advanced equipment and weapons. This allowed us to make a quick, big step in the creation of new types of strategic weapons,” â€“ said the Russian head of state.

In the NBC interview, Putin revealed some additional details of the Russian weapons program.

According to him, all tests new systems of strategic weapons developed in Russia in response to the step of the American side, were successful.

“Some of them still need fine tuning and refinement. Other troops have already been delivered and are in readiness, â€“ said the Russian President in an interview. â€“ Each of these weapons systems is at a certain stage of readiness. Some of them are already on duty, troops.”

As pointed out by Putin, the money in the US directed on creation of missile defense systems, “was wasted” because the latest Russian weapons can overcome them.

The Russian President expressed the view that the great powers should work together to protection from terrorists, not create threats for each other.

According to Putin, he suggested US to work together on missile defense systems, but was refused.